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| Red and blue numbers respectively indicate two-party majorities for Labor and Liberal. Click for larger image. Map boundaries courtesy of Ben Raue at The Tally Room. |
The electorate of Canberra covers the southern half of the national capital together with the bulk of the Australian Capital Territory’s undeveloped remainder, with northern Canberra accommodated by the seat of Fraser. Both seats were created when the territory was first divided into two electorates in 1974. The Australian Capital Territory had been a single electorate since the expansion of parliament in 1949, but its member only obtained full voting rights in 1968. A third electorate of Namadgi was created for the 1996 election, accommodating Tuggeranong and its surrounds in Canberra’s far south, which pushed the Canberra electorate north of Lake Burley Griffin to include the city’s centre and inner north. However, the previous order was reinstated when the seat entitlement slipped back to two at the 1998 election, in large part due to Howard government cutbacks to the federal public service. The two ACT electorates presently have enrolments of around 140,000 voters each, compared with a national average of around 105,000.
The Australian Capital Territory electorate was won by an independent at its first election in 1949, but was held by Labor after 1951. Kep Enderby came to the seat at a 1970 by-election and carried over to Canberra in 1974, succeeding Lionel Murphy as Attorney-General upon his appointment to the High Court in early 1975. Enderby was then dumped by a 10.4% swing to the Liberals at the December 1975 election, and for the next two terms the seat was held for the Liberals by John Haslem. The seat’s natural Labor inclination finally reasserted itself in 1980 with the election of Ros Kelly, who served in the Hawke-Keating ministries from 1987 until she fell victim to the still notorious “sports rorts” affair in 1994. Kelly’s indulgent departure from parliament a year later was followed by a disastrous by-election result for Labor, with Liberal candidate Brendan Smyth gaining the seat off a 16.2% swing.
Smyth unsuccessfully contested the new seat of Namadgi at the 1996 election, and Canberra was easily won for Labor by Bob McMullan, who had served the ACT as a Senator since 1988. The reassertion of the old boundaries in 1998 prompted McMullan to move to Fraser, the Labor margin in the redrawn Canberra being 5.1% lower than the one he had secured on the short-lived boundaries in 1996. Canberra went to Annette Ellis, who had entered parliament as the member for Namadgi in 1996, while Fraser MP Steve Darvagel agreed to go quietly after a brief parliamentary career that began when he succeeded John Langmore at a by-election in February 1997. Ellis added 7.2% to an existing 2.3% margin at the 1998 election, since which time the seat has returned fairly consistent results with Labor margins ranging from a low of 7.0% in 2013 to a high of 11.8% in 2007.
Both Ellis and McMullan announced they would not seek another term six months out from the August 2010 election. Large fields of preselection contestants emerged for the two seats, with the front-runner in Canberra initially thought to be Michael Cooney, chief-of-staff to ACT Education Minister Andrew Barr and a former adviser to opposition leaders Mark Latham and Kim Beazley. However, Cooney shortly withdrew amid suggestions Kevin Rudd was ready to use national executive intervention to block him. The eventual winner was Gai Brodtmann, a former DFAT public servant who had established a local communications consultancy with her husband, senior ABC reporter Chris Uhlmann. Together with Andrew Leigh’s win in Fraser, Brodtmann’s preselection was seen as a rebuff to local factional powerbrokers who had pursued a deal in which the Left was to support Mary Wood, adviser to Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek and member of the Centre Coalition (Right), which the Right was to reciprocate in Fraser by backing Nick Martin, the party’s assistant national secretary and a member of the Left. However, Brodtmann was able to build a cross-factional support base of sufficient breadth to prevail over Wood by 123 votes to 109. Following the 2013 election defeat she was promoted to shadow parliamentary secretary in the defence portfolio.
*laughs*
cf Pyne, Farr says, ‘…I don’t think that is the sort of pal you need…’
Boerwar:
Jacqueline Maley I think it is.
“@senthorun: The Daily Telegraph. Why even bother? #Insiders”
vic
I’ll give you 20 minutes before you pull the pin.
Gawd the utter hypocrisy of Abbott calling anyone a chief whinger!
BK
Penny Wong is now being interviewed. I will probably last untll the interview is over
“@MrDenmore: The inequity of this budget ‘just screams at you’, says former Liberal Party leader John Hewson #abcrn #auspoI”
The Greens will do their cause no good at all if they help pass the regressive PPL and excise indexation. These are regressive measures and should be entirely rejected.
Bill Shorten is doing well with the most blessed position he finds himself in, so soon after the election – but Penny Wong is more articulate, more impressive, more statesmanlike.
off to work!!
“@MrPinkCarpet: Classic comment from Senator Wong: Abbott and Hockey are the only ones in Aus who think it’s a fair budget. Gold #insiders”
Sprocket #9
That’s true.
I just stated the type of budget Bills.
What processes the Senate might actually use (committees, inquiries, horse trading and amendments, other strategies) is another matter altogether.
Wong: “Bronwyn more cheerleader than chair.” So true.
Penny Wong most impressive on Insiders.
Clear, concise, factual.
Far, far better performance than Shorten on Faines show a few days ago.
Rex douglas
I heard Shorten on faine the other day. He did perfectly well
OMG how the hell did I know Insiders would devote so much time to that stupid wink?!
*Switches off*
Abbott is a w@@ker
[The Greens will do their cause no good at all if they help pass the regressive PPL and excise indexation.]
Agree that the PPL must be rejected. The excise should be passed so long as the Greens stick to their plan to amend in the senate ensuring that every dollar raised goes to public transport NOT roads.
Maley isn’t worried about Abbott’s wink. Swan reckons it is twitter’s fault.
Irony-free zone: Insiders spends five minutes talking about how the MSM is talking about something that, really, is not at all important.
Victoria
Faine reduced Shorten to an indecisive weathervane. Shorten was very much unprepared for that interview, unlike Wong this morning.
Fran does not get it that she is the chair, not the chief talker.
Rex Douglas
I disagree
From previous thread.
bemused@683 on Galaxy: 52-48 to federal Coalition in Queensland | The Poll Bludger
Insiders discussing how Coalition figures repeatedly made mistakes of sigificant detail in selling their own budget:
Farr… ‘…raised the question of competence…’
Another from previous thread.
bemused@684 on Galaxy: 52-48 to federal Coalition in Queensland | The Poll Bludger
Fran is so hopeless she makes any interviewee look good. But Wong does not need that as she is always on the ball and very articulate
on insiders
Malcolm Farr gets it right by saying that the real question with the budget is competence. Did TA and JH know what they were talking about? No.
He was also puzzled for a a moment when Fran was going on about what Joe was planning about Super later in the year as she mused on whether he would fix this mess in November.
Good lord, Jacqueline Maley is an airhead.
She’s running the line on Insiders that the government had prepared people for the budget, that it makes necessary structural reforms, and the only problem is that it’s being sold badly.
Maley just said people are worried the Budget will affect other people. Correct . That is why calling everyone whingers has backfired spectacularly.
“@senthorun: Someone call Vladimir Putin. #insiders”
Because Fran is so busy talking she forgets to distribute the discussion fairly. Farr and Fran dominating with Maley second and Jonathon more often than not, silent.
Fran keeps banging on about “Tough budget” she does not get it at all. The budget was plain bastardy and very little else. Thank goodness Far is more realistic.
[Good lord, Jacqueline Maley is an airhead.]
They’ve got her sitting in the right seat.
This Swift/Swan chappie is talking out of his arse from time to time.
Liberal leadershit!!!!!!!
[She’s running the line on Insiders that the government had prepared people for the budget]
She obviously saw and heard stuff that everyone else missed.
Boer
[Irony-free zone: Insiders spends five minutes talking about how the MSM is talking about something that, really, is not at all important.]
Yes, but, it’s twitter’s fault.
[Keyman
Posted Sunday, May 25, 2014 at 9:40 am | PERMALINK
Fran keeps banging on about “Tough budget” she does not get it at all. The budget was plain bastardy and very little else. Thank goodness Far is more realistic.]
So a fair political reporter would have said:
“Plain bastardy budget” rather than “tough budget”
then?
I think I can see why you all thought there was media bias last term.
Not that many saying there is media bias this term though is there?
Farr… it is not going to happen… but he then goes through the possible candidates and casually wipes them off the slate…
Farr reckons that there might be a bit of a challenge to Credlin…
“@nancycato1: Fran Kelly comes across about as impartial in #Insiders as Bronwyn Bishop does in the Speaker’s Chair! #YetAnotherABCDisappointment”
Contrast Abbott’s ‘iron necessity’ and ‘no surrender’ on the budget with Pynes ‘consult’.
Maley reckons that Abbott has to maintain facade of strong man even while his henchman are negotiating.
In other words, it is OK to look all over the shop.
ML
[Not that many saying there is media bias this term though is there?]
You quote something which has been identified here as biased reporting to prove we were wrong about biased reporting?
I quote something which has been identified here as biased reporting!
HAha 🙂
Are you seriously saying that a reporter not using “bastardy budget” means they are biased?
Really?
Interesting that Farr left Morrison off his list of leadership contenders, and then talks about his ‘success’ as a Minister.
c
Yep J. Maley. thanks.
[Are you seriously saying that a reporter not using “bastardy budget” means they are biased?]
No. Why are you avoiding the point I WAS making?
Morrison has succeeded fabulously according to the PB metric of success on the issue.
I take it PB has now changed its tune about the metric of success now that it doesn’t suit to have the old one?
[No. Why are you avoiding the point I WAS making?]
That WAS the point you were making. You were trying to claim that a poster was making the point that the media showed bias because they didn’t use “bastardy budget”. The reason you wanted to make that claim is to support the view that posters were STILL claiming the media shows bias.
OK, answer this:
Do you think the claims of media bias on PB have increased, decreased or stayed the same this term compared with last term?
ML
No, my point is that you respond to an accusation of bias by the media towards the Liberals by claiming that that proves that posters here are incorrect to claim there is bias towards the Liberals in the media.
As per usual the cartoonists tell it like it is so well